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State Attorney Angela Corey upgrades her pension with taxpayer dollars

State Attorney Angela Corey has spent $235,000 in taxpayer dollars to upgrade her pension and the pension of her senior prosecutor, according to state records.

The money was used to increase the percentage of pay that will be provided as a pension for both Corey and Bernie de la Rionda, raising the amount each will receive when they retire. Corey said she also plans to increase the pensions of 17 prosecutors, although that plan does not have a price tag.

Using the department funds for such a purpose is legal, with a change in state law in 2001 allowing state agencies to pay to upgrade the accrual rate for certain workers. The Times-Union has asked the Florida Retirement System for records showing any other state workers in Northeast Florida whose pensions have been upgraded.

The change was made after the accrual rate for some workers was bumped from 1.6 percent to 2 percent and was designed to let workers increase their benefits for the years before the rate was increased. The law also allows the affected employees to pay for their own upgrade.

Corey and de la Rionda each had almost 14 years of service that could be upgraded. Doing so cost $108,439 for Corey and $126,653 for de la Rionda.

Both Corey and de la Rionda make $150,076 a year. Based on their years of service, their annual pensions will be about $65,000, including the upgrade, which adds about $8,300 a year.

Corey said she began examining the idea of buying the credits in 2010 and put in the paperwork for her and de la Rionda in December 2011.

The office had the money to do so because of savings achieved over the past three years, Corey said.

“We knew we had the money in our budget,” she said. “We’ve been scrimping and saving.”

Those savings, she said, have allowed her to give raises three out of the last four years.

Last month, she said, she started the process of buying the increases for the 17 other employees in her office who are eligible, working down the list of workers in order of seniority. It’s not clear how much those upgrades will cost.

The 19 people who will get the pension boost are all career prosecutors who worked in the office after Feb. 1, 1987. The State Attorney’s Office has about 370 positions.

Corey said she chose to use the funding for the pension credit purchases rather than raises because the purchase is a one-time expense, not a recurring one.

Doing so now is necessary, she said, because former State Attorney Harry Shorstein did not do it when he had the opportunity.

“I wish this could have been done in 2001,” Corey said.

But Shorstein said doing so wouldn’t have been proper. Instead, he said, when he saved money, he would distribute it as staffwide bonuses. Shorstein also spent about $30,700 buying credits related to military service for himself and three other employees, according to records provided by Corey.

Corey said she didn’t use the money for bonuses because it was important to correct the deficit that occurred in the years that employees’ pensions accrued at the lower level.

“This money did not in any way take away from any employee,” she said. “It was given to everyone eligible for it.”

But if people wanted to upgrade their pensions, Shorstein said, they should spend their own money to do so.

Although the state statute says the upgrades “may be purchased by the employer on behalf” of employees, the rest of the section talks about employees purchasing credits on their own. The paperwork sent to the employee also notes “your employer may pay all or any portion of the amount,” although the rest of the letter talks about “you” paying for the credit.

But spending personal funds for pension increases wouldn’t make sense, said Corey, who said her office is the taxypayers’ law firm, with the public paying their compensation.

“That would be like asking if I want to pay part of my salary with my own money,” she said.

timothy.gibbons@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4103

State Attorney Angela Corey upgrades her pension with taxpayer dollars- By